We love giving pretty names to things, and we are fascinated by the idea that you are either a hunter or a farmer professionally. Especially if it’s in English. In short, we are hunters if we tend to focus on business or farmers if we focus on reality. As always, underneath it all lies humanity. In this post, I reflect on this topic as a whole and each group’s situation, or rather, the coexistence of one another. Because this is not a story of heroes and villains, it is just a story, and like any good story, it depends on the moment in which it is lived. Let’s see. Let’s read…
The other day I was asked the same question that gives name to this post, and honestly, I didn’t know how to answer. It seems that since we love to classify, categorize, label, and typify, we have thought that there are two types of workers: hunters and farmers. Taking into consideration that in the new economic enterprise we are all commercial from a purely commercial point of view, the hunters are those who are always looking for new clients, new markets, new opportunities… while the farmers are those who focus on the clients they have, and take care of them, strengthen loyalty and try, if necessary, to extend the existing collaboration agreement between the two.
In practical terms, it is more than evident that hunters are required in survival situations and rapid growth. If you think long-term and about sustainable development, then farmers are what you need. After doing a little anthropology for Dummies, it seems that no one is born to be a farmer; they are made. The further down the evolutionary ladder we go, the more like hunters we are. Thus, the first hominids considered human were hunters. Gradually, tired of constantly migrating as they wiped out the area’s wildlife, they became gatherers, and the first human settlements bear witness to this. However, as gathering depleted their natural resources, agriculture was born. We are talking about 10,000 years ago in the Middle East, which is when civilization as such really began.
It is somewhat the same with companies, and this is where I launch into an extreme economic synthesis exercise. Artisans were farmers who emerged to cover the need to provide manufactured products for new societies created around agriculture. The birth and expansion of local commerce made them grow, but it was not until the late Middle Ages that they acquired the status of a working-class and formed guilds. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mercantile capitalism and the birth of the first companies dedicated to the trade of goods arose. The farmers’ time came to an end, and the hunters’ era officially began, as shown, for example, by the long and dark history of the East India Company. With the industrial revolution of the mid-19th century, industrial capitalism was imposed, and large corporations were created, leaving the craftsmen’s trades as merely anecdotal and picturesque. At the beginning of the 20th century, financial capitalism was born, and it was the era of banks and an anything-goes mentality. Throughout this century, the hunter was king, and the jaspers, brokers, aggressive executives, and millionaire playboys were the new heroes. Yet suddenly, at the end of the century, just as Marx had predicted, the financial inflation reached its breaking point, and everything exploded. The terms of capitalism were redefined, the hunters were demonized in favor of the farmers, and everything started over, yet again…And here we are, in the middle of the 21st century, talking about bitcoins and metaverses, while 10% of the population is in extreme poverty, and the Amazon loses its territory. The reality is that whether we like it or not, companies need hunters, even though farmers’ likeability has made it so that hunters are frowned upon. After all, we have forgotten that this is not only about saving the planet but also about social and economic sustainability. However, this is another, much longer, and more profound discussion…
Let’s go over both of their professional roles again. A hunter looks for business, and if one fails, they look for another. Of course, they seek to please the client, but the immediate quantitative return is what determines their involvement, and once the client or the project has been obtained, it drops to a minimum. A farmer also looks for business, but the return they hope for is not only quantitative, but they also consider a possible future relationship. Of course, if we talk about the work environment and leadership, my opinion is that farmers, being more focused on people, are more likely to generate a good work environment and establish policies of fairness and meritocracy. That does not mean that hunters are not people-oriented, but due to their level of demand, approach, and compensation, they are concentrated on results, generating stress, frustration, and abandonment. And we all know how that ends.
Let’s go one step further and talk about corporate culture since this is an internal communication blog in theory. I have always said that companies are people and that different people are different companies. I am also a strong advocate of the principles that govern them because losing this essence has proven to be nothing but an expensive mistake. Hunters focus all their efforts on results and, although it’s not always the case, the ends usually justify the means. We are all familiar with the circumstances of the large telephone, energy, or technology monsters whose corporate discourse is the opposite of commercial behavior. That’s where I stop. As Regan said in response to the Challenger disaster, confusing bravery with recklessness, the future does not belong to the faint-hearted… And speaking of the future, if we are talking about loyalty, there is no need to say who is more loyal, the farmer or the hunter. Yes, we want good people in companies, and we also want them to be good people, but being both is an increasingly sought-after rarity. Needless to say, if you find it, keep it.
As always, as we come to an end, it’s time to make a statement. José, are you a hunter or a farmer? I tell the Galician woman that it really depends because obviously, I am more of a farmer, but not one of those people in the movies who die with lemons; instead, I’m more the type that if destiny gives him lemons, he makes lemonade. I know it sounds strange, but I consider myself a meat farmer, a term that I invented, and apart from not needing a translation, is much better than saying that I am a carrot hunter. I’m like my grandfather, who used to carry a hoe and a shotgun by bike or mule depending on the destination and went out to the countryside to see what was happening. If a partridge flew by during hunting season, he shot it. If it was time to pick potatoes, he picked them. So, neither farmer nor hunter, neither hard workers nor dreamers, neither losers nor winners. If you have to sow, you sow, if you have to hunt, you hunt, and if you have to gather, you gather. The ends never justify the means, but nobody arrives at their destination if they do not know where they are going. In order not to continue with these facts, I leave you with the same question. What are you, a farmer, or a hunter?
